Police officers arrested for leaks to MDC

ZRPolice

Two senior police officers and an ex-policeman have been arrested, with the serving officers being summarily transferred to remote police stations outside Harare

This was after they were accused of allegedly leaking police information to the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).

Police sources have revealed that Senior Assistant Commissioner Justice Chengeta last week ordered the arrest of Superintendents Casper Nhepera and another one identified only as Madiko for allegedly violating the Official Secrets Act.

Chengeta had walked into an office which was being used by the two at the Police General Headquarters to find them entertaining one Macmillan Mukombachoto, whom Chengeta accused of being a secret MDC agent.

Chengeta, who has a declared incorrigible dislike for the MDC, was further agitated by the fact that Mukombachoto had produced a computer flash disk from which his former colleagues took delight in downloading music.

“Chengeta immediately ordered their arrest,” said a source. They spent the weekend detained at Harare Central Police Station.”

As they were languishing in custody, their transfer papers were being processed. Nhepera was transferred to Nkayi in Matabeleland North Province while Madiko was moved to Nyanga in Manicaland.

Mukombachoto is a former police officer who worked for over 20 years as a lower ranking policeman. For most of his service he worked as a photographer for Outpost, the monthly magazine of the Zimbabwe Republic Police. The Zimbabwe Times could not readily establish when the accused are likely to go on trial for the alleged offence.

Chengeta who is regarded with awe in the police force is among Police Commissioner General Augustine Chihuri’s top lieutenants. He has been at the forefront of “cleansing” Zimbabwe’s heavily politicized police force of both known and suspected MDC sympathizers.

Purging has routinely been used as a strategy by Chihuri to frustrate professional police officers who have refused to follow orders from their superiors to apply the law selectively.

One of such victims is the former officer commanding Harare Province, senior assistant commissioner Emmanuel Chimwanda, who was forced to terminate his service by Chihuri at the onset of Zimbabwe’s current political crisis 2000.

Chimwanda, now a director in Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s office, had insisted on the arrest of marauding war veterans and Zanu-PF militants in Masvingo who were committing crimes with impunity.

Chihuri, an avowed supporter of President Robert Mugabe’s Zanu PF, is among service chiefs who have publicly declared they will never salute Tsvangirai.

He has further threatened to dismiss any police officer found to be sympathetic to the MDC.